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Since this is a habit-building exercise, write it down 20 times on a piece of paper after you learn how to spell it correctly.Do you often confuse whether it is truly or trully?
Trully or Truly | Truely or Truly
So, what is the correct way to spell it: truly, truely, or trully?
It’s TRULY, truly!
With a single L and no e.
The only correct spelling of this word is Truly.
Almost 20% of people make this mistake: they misspell truly! Straight up, it’s plain wrong to write TRULLY or TRUELLY.
So, for all eternity, let it be known that the only correct version of “truly” is:
T-R-U-L-Y.
Origin of Truly
Truly is an adverb that comes from True (an adjective).
Normally, we simply add -ly to turn an adjective into an adverb, like quick to quickly, polite to politely, and complete/absolute to completely/absolutely.
But TRULY loses its “e” when we add “ly” because that’s an evolution that happened in the 1700s.
The word transformed into our modern “truly” since the publication of Samuel Johnson’s “A Dictionary of the English Language” in 1755. Encyclopædia Britannica writes of it:
Johnson’s accomplishment was to provide for the English language a dictionary that incorporated with skill and intellectual power the prevailing ideals and resources and the best available techniques of European lexicography.
Before that change happened in the 1700s, Shakespeare wrote the word as “truely,” as was customary in Middle English.
Claudius: “Thou think’st I am in sport, I pray thee tell me truely how thou lik’st her.”
— Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakepeare 1623
Meaning of Truly
Truly means “in a manner that is most certainly true, or in an honest or truthful way.”
As in:
“Marcus Aurelius was truly the noblest of all Roman Emperors of his, or any other, age.”
Loosely, it may be used to mean “to a large extent,” as a replacement word for extremely, totally, utterly, majorly, and awfully.
As in the sentence:
“It was a truly amazing work by the most notorious American gangster of Italian origin.”
That was Al Capone .
So, now you know, can you imagine Al Capone saying the following about his wife?
“I can truly say that my wife is an angel who preserves her beatific smiles for me.”
And, could he have said the following to his guests?
“These are truly vegan dishes, and no animals were hurt during their preparation.”
Let me guess, you won’t be imagining Al Capone telling you how he hates his nickname “Scarface” while he’s brandishing his pistol to a trembling you tied to a chair:
“I don’t think you truly understand my emotions.”
Synonyms of Truly
Truly has these common synonyms:
- Really.
- Surely.
- Clearly.
- Actually.
- Exactly.
- Sincerely.
- Genuinely.
- Certainly.
- Definitely.
- Absolutely.
- Truthfully.
If you wish to replace the adverb with a non-ly phrase (that ends with a noun), you might choose:
- in truth,
- in fact,
- to your face,
- to be honest,
- without doubt,
- beyond question,
- with all my heart,
- to tell you the truth.
- beyond doubt (or the lengthy beyond the shadow of a doubt)
Surname Truly
Truly is also a surname, though quite rare.
A truly notable guy in this league was Richard Harrison Truly, who became an astronaut for NASA in 1969.
R. H. Truly flew the Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-2) to space in November 1981. Incidentally, it was the first crewed spacecraft to be re-flown into space.
Mr. Truly’s second space flight was in August 1983 as commander of Space Shuttle Challenger (STS-8), the program’s first night launch and landing.
I wonder how much fun the Truly surname family has when they sign off letters and emails with
Yours Truly!
Truly, that is all I got to know!
Final Words
If you search for “trully” on Google, it asks you:
Did you mean: truly?
So, the only right way to write it is T-R-U-L-Y.
Now that you know how to spell it correctly, write it down 20 times on a piece of paper to form a permanent habit.
[This was a fun post. I occasionally indulge in amusing posts like this to take a break from my usual theme – Psychology and Philosophy of Happiness.]
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Author Bio: Written by Sandip Roy—a medical doctor, psychology writer, and happiness researcher. Founder and Chief Editor of The Happiness Blog. Writes on mental health, happiness, positive psychology, and philosophy (especially Stoicism).
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